


blood on your shirt

by bartonbones



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt, everyone keeps secrets bc they love eachother and foggy nelson is a saint, h/c, i swear i didn't ship anyone but u can probably read like 3 different ships in here if you wanted to, post S1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3838309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartonbones/pseuds/bartonbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>get out, get gone. this town is only going to get worse; this town is going to eat you whole.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>"[S]he admitted her secret, over and over and over again until it was easier than breathing, saying those words. “I killed someone,” to her coffee in the morning, to a glass of alcohol at night, “I killed someone.”. Some secrets the trio have been keeping come out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested listening, if you care about that kind of thing: "Bloody Shirt" (the titular song) by To Kill A King; "No One's Here To Sleep" by Naughty Boy and Bastille. Thank you for reading! Part two should be up eventually, maybe, if y'all like it?

"I killed someone," said Karen.

Into a mirror, into her reflection, at her phone with no one dialed—she admitted her secret, over and over and over again until it was easier than breathing, saying those words. "I killed someone," to her coffee in the morning, to a glass of alcohol at night, "I killed someone."

"Killed someone" doesn't even have the same severity as, "I unloaded a gun into someone's chest and can't pretend that all of it was self defense" or "I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it" or "I can't pretend I wish I didn't do it" but it's all of the words she can manage, even with no one listening.

She thinks of telling someone.

"Catholics," she says, leading the conversation with that because she might as well. "They've got confessions, right?"

She's a little bit drunk—they're all a little bit past merrily tipsy in celebration of everything being over and their first non-Fisk-related-client, little bit drunk in the way that all of the sudden, to each for their own problems and their own guilt, are all hit by it at once.

The gravity of what happened.

The idea that they're not over it quite yet.

The clawing, knowing,  _aching_  feeling that they might not ever be.

And they're all thinking something different but Karen's the only one to bring up hers.

"Yeah," says Matt. "Uh—yeah, we do."

He furrows his eyebrows at the table, licks his lips. They're all drunk enough that any question is fair game, really.

"Got something on your mind?"

"Does it help if I did?"

She's admitted she's killed someone to anything and everything, except someone else. And although she's not sure how confession works—she gets conflicting information from movies, books and Matt himself, when he mentions it vaguely, as an important but average part of his life—maybe it will help.

She doesn't even know if you can  _go_  if you're not Catholic, if you don't know the script of words you're supposed to lead with before you bare your soul and your sins and you guilt to someone, but somehow, the idea latched on to her head and she wants to at least  _try_  it, something to get this out of her, and on to someone else's shoulders, at least a little bit.

Matt shrugs.

"As much as anything," he says, words curiously layered in a way Karen might pick up on if she weren't so damn concerned about her own conscience."Something on your mind?"

Matt acts like he's not aware that he's repeated the same question she didn't answer before, and Karen doesn't know if she's glad of that or if she kind of hates him for it. Foggy gives Karen a  _look_ , a look that says he's very interested in how exactly she answers this question.

"You could always confess to us," says Foggy, and then, I'm serious."

Matt gives her a smile.

"You really could," he says. "I mean, we are lawyers, us. We've heard worse."

Karen laughs at that, because yes, they have, but no they haven't because the self defense case they represented doesn't work in their office or make their coffee sometimes or go out for drinks with them. They're the closest things to friends and family she  _has,_  and in one fell swoop—or five shots—she ruined all of it. She clutches her face in her hands, her hair falling over, and laughs.

"I am so  _fucked_ ," she says, somewhere between a laugh and a sob and a moan just a general cry out go God, God,  _oh God, I killed someone and they don't even know._

Foggy gives an uneasy laugh.

"Maybe we should slow down on the eel juice, then," he says.

He should be so light-hearted and laughing and sarcastic, Foggy should, but he's not. He's tense and concerned and Matt's silence matches it. She doesn't respond. A few moments pass, before Matt licks his lips and looks at her— _at_  her, in a way that can't be easy for him, but he's doing for her. Karen wants to cry, sob, break down right here in Josie's dirty bar in front of the two people she has left.

"Karen," says Matt. "What's wrong? What happened?"

What happened  _to_  you, not what did  _you_  do, is the undertone, something that paints her as a victim. He has that protective way about him, the kind that keeps secrets or tells truths and locks doors as he thinks is necessary to protect the people that he loves. They're not dissimilar, entirely, except Karen does it because she's selfish as all living hell and Matt does it because he's a goddamn saint in the making.

"Nothing," she says. She shakes her head, covers her mouth with her hands as if to physically stop herself from saying the words that are not quite like breathing but not as terrible as they should be, and squeezes her eyes shut, just for a moment, just for a second of not facing them, and then opens them. "Nothing. It's just—been hard getting here, yeah?"

"Of course, yeah," says Matt, suspicious, worried. "Just that—I don't know if that's all of it."

Foggy nods empathetically, his eyebrows furrowed.

She wants to mention, you have secrets too. Wants to say she sees the glances he and Foggy shares, the ones can't quite be pinned on however the hell long they knew each other, the inside jokes that are just a little too pointed and a little too new, the car accident without a car.

But she doesn't.

She doesn't because it doesn't seem fair, Matt's so  _good_ , he's never done anything wrong in his life, the damn Catholic, and she's comparing her secrets to his. His secrets never killed anyone, hers did. (More than once.)

"I'm fine," she says.

"Like hell," says Foggy.

It's funny how when she found out that Matt was Catholic she had the instinct to apologize every time she took God's name in vain, or other such swear, but Foggy seemed to have hit the point where he knew that Matt was not a sensitive person, and it hardly mattered.

She tried to smile.

"It's been a long. Life." she says.

That's not a lie, really.

"I  _am_  fine."

That is.

"I swear I'm telling the truth," she says.

"In a court of law?" says Matt. He doesn't say it wittly, exactly, more resigned. A joke that means alright, I trust you, and I give up.

The funny thing is, in a court of law, the answer is no.

* * *

 

"You think Karen's hiding something?" said Matt.

Of course Foggy thinks that, and Matt knows that Foggy thinks that because he told Foggy that Karen's heart was all over the place and Foggy didn't even scold him for snooping.

"Yeah," said Foggy. "I'm not an idiot. It's just..."

He sounds conflicted.

"So are we."

* * *

 

Matt's secret is different, though.

Matt's secret isn't something so innocent as  _Karen's_  would be, Karen doesn't have a devil in her, unless his is contagious. A contagious devil, anger, carelessness, that spreads to even her. He can twist this, somehow, into thinking it's all his fault—because in a way, yeah, it is.

Sometimes he thinks about telling her.

He knows it's tearing Foggy up, keeping a secret from her. He, as a rule, hates secrets, loves his friends.

Foggy's the best man Matt's ever known and that just kind of messes everything up.

Except, Foggy found him.

Foggy spared him from the awkwardness of working his tongue around the phrase, "I am the Devil of Hell's Kitchen" (Daredevil, now, a slightly nicer name) but unless he showed up half-dead on Karen's carpet, he'd have to tell that to her straight.

There just wasn't an easy way to explain that you dressed up like the devil and punched the shit out of people in the middle of the night. There just wasn't.

* * *

 

Eventually, everyone spills.

* * *

 

Matt first.

"I'm Daredevil," he says.

There's some shock, some surprise, but for the most part Karen laughs. She doesn't believe him, obviously.

"Sure," she says. There's a smile, humor in her voice. Matt groans. "And I'm Batman. Can't prove I'm not."

"No, I mean—genuinely. You can ask Foggy."

Not exactly true at the second, since Foggy was out getting bagels as planned as so to make this go as easy as possible, but now Matt's doubting that decision of his.

"Okay, no offence, Matt—"

"I've already taken it," he mutters, because for God's sake, Karen, it took months for him to work up the courage to explain to you the deepest darkest part of him and months more to trust that there was no more danger in you knowing than  _not_  knowing. Everyone else knew by chance, but apparently Karen was the only one, also, who decided just to not believe.

"Yes," he says, "I  _am_  blind, and I  _am_  Daredevil. I got—chemicals splashed in my eyes when I was a kid and now I have heightened senses, but I'm still blind."

And  _then_ , Karen pauses.

"What the _hell_ , Matt?"

And then he goes on and he explains everything, in the same way he explained to Foggy. Yes, he can "see", but no, he's still legally blind. He probably shouldn't drive a car. He doesn't have any colors anymore, except red and orange. Yes, that's the plot to Kung-Fu. Yeah, (said, with a laugh) Stick was kind of an asshole. And then, when he's finished:

"You're an asshole."

Yeah, he thinks, that's fair.

"How could you not— _tell me?_  I was standing there, like an idiot, all this time and—you didn't even try to defend him when Foggy— _Jesus,_ Matt!"

"It was to keep you safe," he says.

Karen laughed.

"And  _that_  worked so well, didn't it?"

"What does that mean?"

There was silence. He hated this—facial expressions were so vague, so untelling to him, she could be doing anything and he wouldn't know for shit. He could fight people, kill people (if he wanted, if he had to) he maim them, but Stick, he never taught him how to  _talk_  to people.

He could tell that her heart was beating fast, but that could mean anything. She was nervous, hell, so was he. It meant nothing.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "It's over, it's done, he's in jail—"

"But it's not," he says. "Not for you, is it?"

"Not for  _me?_ " says. Karen, loudly, loud enough that Matt didn't  _wince_ exactly but his hearing was so much and his emotions were so much that he sort of did. "You're the one who's still going around, risking your life! Jesus, that wasn't—the goddamn car accident, that was what that was?  _Jesus_."

"Look," he says."Look, I made my choice, I'm doing what I want and I'm fine with it. You're not, you're not fine, you're keeping something, to—to what? Who are you protecting?"

There's silence.

It lasts too long.

Eventually, he hears Karen crying and his heart sinks to the bottom of his chest.

"Oh, Karen, I'm—"

He walks towards her, awkwardly puts his arms around her. Hugs aren't exactly something he does often—blame it on his shitty childhood as you can blame most things on most people, but it's awkward for him to initiate them.

"Me," she says, sobs, laughs, "I'm protecting  _me_."

Foggy comes in, bagels in hand.

"Karen?" he says. "Matt?"

"I _killed him_ ," says Karen.

And then everything just kind of stops.

Matt pulls away from Karen, stumbles back, Foggy drops the little paper bag full of bagels from the Jewish deli down the road.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," says Matt.

It's hardly a swear, in all of his years he'd never really fallen into the habit of taking the Lord's name in vain, it's more of a prayer. Karen  _killed someone_.

"Killed...who?" says Foggy.

"Wesley," she says. "I killed—I shot Wesley."

She shrugged, shaking. He could tell that she was holding her arms, and if he weren't so  _shocked,_  if he could make his mind work past  _Karen killed someone_ , Karen killed Wesley,  _Karen_ , he might feel guilty for breaking the hug.

But now all there is is shock.

"How?" says, Matt.

"He...he found me," she says, "Took me."

"Did he hurt you?" said Matt.

He's breathing so roughly he could almost feel his lungs burn. He couldn't concentrate on anything but Karen so he couldn't see what Foggy was doing, or anything else  _but_  Karen.

"God, no," she says. "He didn't and I shot him—I don't know, how many times, and I don't regret it. I don't regret it. I'm glad he's dead but I keep  _seeing_ , and hearing, Fisk, he won't leave my head—"

"Jesus, Karen," says Foggy.

Matt can't breathe.

"I can't—"

He was an asshole for making this about him, and he knew it, but they were supposed to be _safe_ , and somehow once again they weren't, and he  _didn't kill anyone_  but  _Karen did_  and Karen wouldn't have had to if he hadn't—if he hadn't—

God, at least if he killed him his soul was already damned but  _Karen's_  wasn't, and she was the one who had to live with it, God, he had nightmares now even when he only put someone in a coma and God, God,  _God,_  he remembered the bible verses about leading His sheep astray, stones tied around necks and drowning—

"Matt!"

" _Jesus_ , Karen," he says, after a moment, the words a great rush of air, "You  _killed_ him? I'm sorry, I'm—"

An asshole, but oh my  _God._

He grips the edge of the desk behind him, leaning against it like he legs can't hold him.

"Matt?" says Foggy.

Karen was crying. He could hear her take in gulping, shaking breaths. He felt like the world's biggest asshole but suddenly, his carefully constructed world of morality came crumbling down, because he couldn't figure out how this wasn't his fault.

"He had—he  _gave me the gun_ ," says Karen. "What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," says Matt. "I don't know."


	2. Chapter 2

Matt goes home after that.

Foggy doesn't look like he trusts him to walk himself anywhere—apparently being able to sense things like he doesn't doesn't change the fact that he's untrustworthy to take care of himself. Considering how banged up he looked after the not-car-accident, Karen can't even say that Foggy's wrong.

She was still shaking.

She didn't know how she  _expected_  Matt to react, but that was sure as hell  _not_  it. He was a calm man, it seemed to her, by nature, and so the sudden near-panic was frightening, and even worse to know she caused it.

But Foggy was still here, standing near the door, his fingers loosely clenched into fists.

"He's—" started Foggy, Karen went to say something, that he didn't need to defend Matt because it was fair enough for him to react like that but Foggy held out a hand to stop her from doing so, " _very_  Catholic."

Karen nodded.

She still had her arms wrapped protectively, comfortingly around herself, after Matt had broken the hug and left.

"Foggy—"

"Was it?" he said, angry and low. Not a sound that's nice to hear from Foggy's lips. "Was it self-defense?"

"Foggy..." said Karen.

She didn't know how to answer. In a way, maybe, yes, he was  _threatening_  her, threatening Matt and Foggy, but he could threaten all he wanted, because the gun was in her hands, not his. There were several ways she could have not killed him, if she thought about it, and she's pretty sure you don't  _enjoy_  killing in self-defense, nor do you feel this guilty about it after.

"Was it?"

"I don't...I don't know," she said. She took a shuddering breath and pressed her fingers against her lips, shaking her head. "I don't know. He was—he was going to  _kill you_ —"

"Kill me?"

"He was going to kill  _Matt_ —"

" _Matt?_ "

She shrugged, shaking.

"That's what he said."

Foggy stared at her for a moment. Karen avoided his eyes—strangely, at this moment, she almost envied Matt his blindness, just to avoid this. Foggy wasn't happy with her, Karen could tell, but he wasn't running out of the building or yelling or screaming, either. Then, Foggy wasn't Matt, with his unshakable morals and poor sense of self-worth and righteous anger.

Foggy hadn't ever been mad at her before, not really.

She didn't know what it'd be like.

"He—he never killed anyone," said Foggy. "Daredevil. Uhm—Matt. He never killed anyone."

"I'm  _sorry_ ," said Karen, wishing Foggy would just... _understand_ , let it go, somehow, get over the fact that he's in the same room as a murderer because she misses being friends with Foggy and they'd just rebuilt that fragile sense of home, of safety, and then she  _fucked it all up_  and they  _only know half of it_. She wished she weren't sobbing so she'd feel a little stronger in the situation, but her boy worked against her.

"He was very proud of that."

"He still  _hasn't_ ," said Karen. "If you're—Foggy, I don't understand what you're trying to—I don't understand, Foggy."

"I don't think he's going to take it like that," laughed Foggy. "The damn  _martyr._ "

Karen furrowed her eyebrows, shaking her head.

"But what about you?"

"I haven't killed anyone either," said Foggy.

There was silence for a few moments. They ticked on, agonizing, as Foggy's face did ten different things, showed ten different emotions. She didn't know what he was doing, why he was bringing up Matt, defending Matt's reaction, trying to explain when there was nothing to explain.

"I don't—"

"Please don't say you don't know," said Karen. "I can't—I can't handle it. Just tell me— _tell me_  what you think."

Foggy paused. Pressed his lips together, Karen could tell that he didn't want to answer her. Come on, she thought, I've just told you my biggest secret, the least you could do is react with  _honesty_ , instead of hiding through what it might do to your friend, behind what he might feel.

"I'm not—I'm not Matt," he said. "I just—I didn't sign up for this. I wanted to—I wanted to help people, I wanted to make money, fine, I admit it, I wanted to make my family proud of one of them. I didn't—I didn't sign on for any of this. Not for Fisk, sure as hell not for  _Daredevil_ , and I—I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know what I think because I never thought I'd have to  _do this_."

"You never thought you'd have to debate the moral stances of murder? As a lawyer?"

"As a lawyer?" said Foggy, incredulously. "No! The legalities, fine, but not the  _morality_  and definitely not in my  _friends_!"

The word "friend" is the wrong end of a knife, slices through her heart, more than anything else he or Matt had said on finding out. She can't help the remarkably high-pitched noise that escapes her throat when he says it. She had worked so hard, at making connections, and one ended up dead and then this happened with the other attempts.

Maybe this was the universe's way of telling her she was destined to be alone.

"I never...I didn't want to tell you," she said.

"Doesn't change that you did it," said Foggy.

Karen nodded, even though the movement is nearly painful.

"I know," she said.

* * *

 

Foggy leaves.

* * *

 

Being alone in the office is not entirely unusual for her, although the amount that she was was only now explained by the fact that  _Matt_  was Daredevil, and somehow that was the least emotionally destroying thing that had been said. (Although that didn't stop her brain, the part that missed the memo that Matt was mad at her and probably didn't want to speak with her, from worrying, just a bit, and remembering the vaguely explained injuries and bruises that left her nearly concerned for some form of domestic abuse.)

Matt, even as he fought people who beat the  _hell_  out of him, left him with more bruised skin than not, never killed anyone.

She closed her eyes, buried her face in to her hands. She tried to take a deep breath and figure out where she was going to go from here. It was New York, there were a million and a half secretary jobs, if she looked for them, she could get out of here—

But she liked it here.

Hell's Kitchen had flaws that buried it deep in to the ground, it had criminals and thugs, murderers, gangs, but it had streets that smelled like piss and buildings with chipping, peeling paint. But it had good people, it had good hearts, brave hearts, gentle souls, it had...well, it  _had_  friends.

Without them the only thing that would be tying her here would be a vain, unlikely hope that she hadn't just fucked everything up entirely. And if she had, then it'd just be a painful reminder, the streets would be graveyards and every step a stone, here lies the only goddamn chance you had left.

She rested her head on her arms that sat on the cheap wooden desk. It was hardly comfortable, but then she didn't really feel like she deserved that much. From here, she could see, more clearly, the sign on the door, the way it's not locked, or the way the wood around it is chipped and dented and old, how much it still manages to feel like  _home_.

She could move to a different country.

That might work.

(Wesley is in her dreams.

In some versions, she kills him and the blood runs across the floor, latches on to her feet and she can't run, can't move, the red paralyzes her, crushes her, drowns her. In others, she shoots him, the bullet hitting his chest in a cripplingly slow and yet blindingly fast way that only panic or dreams can fathom into a reality, despite the laws of physics, but then it's not Wesley, it's Foggy, it's Matt, it's Mrs Cardinez, it's Ben.

Is it sad that neither of them are worse than the other? Or is it worse still, that eventually, she just learns to sleep.)

* * *

 

Matt usually doesn't go after robberies.

He tries to rationalize this, somehow, that usually no one is in direct danger, and though his mind brings up helpful ideas of this people who had nothing to begin with having nothing left, he understands that he can't fix everything. He needs to save his energy, his time, himself, for bigger crimes.

He hates that he has to act like God, pick what's worthy of his effort and what he can't do, but Foggy would have his damn head before any random criminal did if he went after anything.

But tonight, he needs to get this out of his system.

A symptom of the devil is that as angry as he gets at himself for causing pain and violence and death, the only thing that seems to make him feel better is  _more_  of that. Hurt makes his fingers itch to hit, stress makes anxiety build up in his system, until he's so  _much_  of everything he needs to get it out somehow, and tonight this is going to be on some poor bastard who decided it'd be fun to break the window of a cornershop and get the five-finger discount on anything in sight.

He didn't even bother with the whole suit, which is a mistake because in hindsight, he should have expected, even from far away as his apartment, for the guy to have some sort of weapon.

So, he gets a few slices and a couple bruises and a black eye but nothing entirely serious, nothing requiring stitches as far as he can tell, and some how he still doesn't feel any better, even though he'd left the store in one piece with no less merchandise and one broken window.

He feels guilty.

Maybe it's that whole Catholic Guilt thing that everyone who isn't Catholic talks about endlessly, but his chest feels heavy and his heart feels bruised in a way that's more symbolic than literal.

He makes it home by two am and by some absolute act of God, he's asleep by three.

(A lot of people have asked him if he dreams.

Foggy, people on first dates or third, the other kids at St Agnes', one or two nuns when he would wake in the middle of the night, breaths crashing on each other like waves on a shore, scared out of his skin because he wakes up and  _can not see_.

And Matt tries to explain it diplomatically, in a way that won't inspire pity, but there's really no easy way to say that dreaming is the only time he ever  _does_  see, in the way that everyone sees dreams. In dreams, everything is mixed together, this great collage of what he remembers—the sky, trees, buildings with peeling paint—what he assumes—he can feel Foggy's or Karen's face, sense the way it moves, he has an almost-idea of what anyone looks like—and what he knows—shapeless sounds, beating against his eardrums, forcing their way in to figure out the shape of the world.

In his dreams, he has colors.

Blue skies, green trees, his memory more vibrant than they probably are, fuzzier than a picture but more  _there_  than they have ever been, the ground is grey and dirty, Foggy has blonde hair because that's what he says he has, and blood is red, red, red, red.

When he told Foggy, he'd nodded, put an arm on Matt's shoulder and said, voice soft:

"No wonder you sleep so damn late.")

* * *

 

Tonight he dreams about Fisk.

Killing Fisk with his own hands,  _knowing_ , knowing about Vanessa and his mom, knowing that monsters can be loved and love just as deeply as he can, he strangles him,  _feels_  his neck and the air not getting to his lungs, feels him die beneath his fingertips, pulse slowing. He kills Fisk over and over until he wakes up and it's not like when he had air in his chest but he still can't breathe, he leans over the side of his bed, gasping for air (Fisk gasped for air, someone begged in the background, red blood beneath his fingers, orange coloring his world) he almost felt like vomiting.

He searches, hand running over his bedside table, he's too panicked to try and focus and figure out where it is on memory, until he finds his phone.

He presses the button to turn it on, and another so that it announces the time.

"The time is: Seven AM."

Matt sighs.

Four hours of sleep is as good as any amount, isn't it?

He still feels guilty in the way that his bruised knuckles don't fix, and the dream and damn near panic attack didn't help much, so he does what any good Catholic boy should, and makes his way to the church.

"Confession or just a chat, today?" says Father Lantom, when he spots him, after several agonizing moments of him not noticing Matt standing in the doorway, and Matt not being sure whether it was better to shock him by just being there or by making a sudden noise.

"Which is better?"

Father Lantom shrugs.

"Depends on what you're looking for," he says. "Forgiveness or comfort?"

Matt licks his lips. Really, in the confessional Father's representing, in a lawful sense, Jesus, and so that's helpful in one way but Matt's not sure if he wants to seek forgiveness from God or just a confirmation that  _he fucked up_ , and this anger he's got at himself is just.

"I just want to talk," he says, finally.

Father Lantom nods and leads him to the social hall with its fancy donated coffee machine and starts making two lattes.

"You know," he says, and he makes a vague gesture towards Matt's black eye that Matt can sense and Father Lantom figures he can, "We don't really go for self-flagellation much anymore."

He laughs a little, painfully, his hand reaching up to the swollen skin.

"I'm a little more orthodox, I guess," says Matt.

Father Lantom frowns a bit.

"I know," says Matt, "My body's a temple—"

"Quite literally," says Father Lantom, with just a hint of chastisement.

"Not anymore," says Matt.

Killing is a grievous sin. A mortal sin, possibly the worst, and Matt knows that mortal sins cast God out from your soul, make it barren and hollow and broken until they are confessed, forgiven. Matt's pretty sure he's not had God in his soul since he was a kid, since before he started putting people in comas because fists on flesh felt good, felt right.

He hasn't received the Eucharist in years, anyway. That kind of defeats the whole purpose.

"That's not something to take lightly, Matthew," says Father, setting down a latte next to Matt, cradling his own in his hands.

Matt swallows.

"I killed someone," he says.

Father Lantom's heart races, immediately, and that's as good as confirmation.

"This isn't confession," said Father. "I'm not under oath to keep this secret."

"I know," said Matt. Maybe that's why he's doing it. "It wasn't uhm—I know that...in a court of law, I probably wouldn't be indicted."

"Self-defense?" says Father.

"Not exactly," said Matt. "Remember that uhm...that bible verse?"

"You'll have to be more specific than that," says Father.

Matt laughs.

"No, it's uhm...I can't remember what book," he says. "Something about...leading children astray, causing them to sin. It's...something about drowning."

"Ah," said Father. " _whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea._  Or something like that. That's from Matthew, you know?"

Matt could choke on the irony, he really could.

"I got my friend in danger," he said, carefully, after a few moment's silence. He has to say the words slowly, as to stop himself from choking on them. "I—if it weren't for me, she'd have never been in the situation to kill anyone, I didn't know...she only just told me but if it  _weren't_ —if I hadn't...she wouldn't have done it. I damned her soul because  _I_  couldn't—"

He's so distracted by his own guilt, strangling him and stifling him that he doesn't notice his breathing growing erratic or Father's hand on his, clutching it gently but firmly.

"Matthew," he says, "That is not your sin."

"It is!" says Matt. "They never asked to be involved in this, I got them in to this because  _I wanted friends_  and now she's damned and I'm—"

"No one is damned," said Father. "Not until the very last second. No one is unforgivable."

I am, thinks Matt. He's vaguely aware that tears are slipping down his cheeks and he's shaking.  _I_  am.

"Matthew, you don't need to do this," says Father. "Someone already died for our sins, and I guarantee He did it better than you ever could."

"But if it weren't for me—"

"Fisk would still be out there, doing worse," says Father. "If you're worried for your friend's soul,  _by all means_  send her here, but this not any more your sin to carry than it is mine. Don't commit a sin of pride by this."

"Pride?" says Matt, almost offended.

How is this  _pride_? He is sitting here, bawling like a child, because he made one of his friends  _murder_  someone, and Father is accusing him of pride?

Father nods, like he's heard Matt's internal monologuing.

"It's just as prideful to assume you are the root of all sin as it is to assume you have no part in it," said Father. "Don't confuse humility for your own actions for a saviour complex."

"What about the martyrs?" said Matt.

"Poetically, they are nice," said Father. "They're great for teaching lessons. But unless you are in that situation, you should not  _try_  to be one. You ever heard of Saint Therese? Of Lisieux?"

Matt has. There was a nun, who took Saint Therese's name, and liked to remind all of the children of her because she was her favorite to tell stories of. Saint Therese, the little flower, all work and small slights for the glory of God.

Father Lantom tells how how sensitive she was as child, how willing to believe that she were inferior, and how that in and of itself was pride. He weaves a nice tale, of how we are not  _called_  to sacrifice ourselves for our faith, for our sins, because Jesus already has, and Matt would almost believe him. And he does, eventually, admits with shame that maybe Karen was not his fault, that he was doing her a disservice by taking that up on him, that he was not lightening her shoulders but breaking his own.

"Long story short, Matt," says Father, "You're committing more of a sin by blaming yourself for this than you had done by befriending her."

Matt nods, understanding. Tears are dried on his cheeks, his eyes feel tired (which Matt is only a little bit bitter at because come on guys, you don't do anything else  _but_  cry anymore) and he feels lighter, in a way he almost feels guilty for feeling, because even if Karen can't be blamed on him he was now, confirmed, for biggest asshole of the year.

"What do I do now?" he says.

Father Lantom pauses.

"Forgive yourself," he says. "And forgive her."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, remember how i said only two chapters? I LIED I'M SORRY. this is getting way out of hand. also, does anyone else feel like daredevil came at the WORST TIME POSSIBLE? like i've got school to finish for the end of the year, essays upon essays i'm seeing age of ultron tonight, but ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT IS MATTHEW MICHAEL MURDOCK...
> 
> also forgive me for using catholicism so heavy handedly. i don't get to do this often


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